Thursday, 27 August 2015

Gemma Seymour knocks various Faux Lib, Homey and waffly Georgist assertions out of the park:

"The obvious implication is that land is, morally speaking, a commons—anyone can use it, nobody can exclude anyone else."

This is utter nonsense. Of course we allow a license to exclude, for which the licensee must pay back to the community the value of that license. This is the whole *point* of the reclamation of economic rents.

"There is no obvious limit to what government is entitled to make me do."

Again, rubbish. There are very clear limits on what government actions may be considered legitimate.

"The argument for the efficiency of land taxation depends on the government that imposes it distinguishing the site value of land from the value that is due to [the owner's] action."

Which anyone even marginally familiar with current property tax valuation practices knows is already the current practice. This is a non-issue.

"I am an anarchist rather than a Georgist."

How absurd. There is no such thing as "anarchism". There is always a power structure. The human brain is incapable of forming trust relationships beyond Dunbar's number, and all civilisations of any complexity require abstraction of trust—government.